Parshah Commentary
If seeing atrocities did anything to stop them, the term “livestreamed genocide” would be an oxymoron. Indeed, it is not obvious that seeing images of disfigured bodies and crying relatives saves lives—or that it honors, rather than betrays, the dignity and humanity of those this “content” portrays—which is why writers and activists have interrogated the political utility of sharing images of the death and dehumanization of Gazans. Similarly, while weeks of videos of ICE agents beating people and dragging them from their cars and homes has helped to activate some people, the scale of mobilization has not matched the deluge of awful images. Why, then, do we continue to trust the value of exposure, believing that if only people saw how bad it truly is, they too would surely join our fight?
Our parshah describes the final three plagues: locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn. In describing the penultimate plague of darkness, the Torah tells us that this darkness was “thick” and that “people could not see one another, and for three days no one could move about.” In other words, the darkness was not only about a lack of sight but also entailed a forced stagnation; accordingly, rabbinic traditions teach that the inability to move around was not simply because people could not navigate without sunlight but rather that they were literally frozen in place. Building on this interpretive tradition, the early modern Ashkenazi biblical commentator Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, known as the Kli Yakar, writes that the inability to move means that the previously established pattern—in which Pharaoh summons Moses, repents, asks that the plague be lifted, and then retracts his promise to free the Israelites after the plague’s resolution—became impossible in this case, because Pharaoh was unable to send for Moses in the midst of forced stillness. This interpretation is backed up by a detail in the text: Darkness, unlike most of the other plagues, ends on its own, without Pharaoh’s intervention.
The frozenness of the plague of darkness shifts us away from the use of visibility as a tactic for freedom. We might read the previous plagues as punishments enacted in order to expose Egyptian violence against the Israelites: an attempt to show the Egyptians how bad things were, and move them to change their behavior. Darkness offers no such opportunity, and no such hope. It is the moment the Exodus narrative abandons all attempts to persuade the Egyptians, and pivots to preparing for liberation. Indeed, the Kli Yakar references Rashi, who teaches that one of the purposes of darkness was to allow the Israelites to sneak into Egyptian homes unnoticed, so that when they later came to demand reparations from their enslavers, they would be able to locate exactly where the Egyptians kept their gold and jewels. This plague was not designed to move the Egyptians: Its purpose was to enable the initial steps of the Exodus.
The queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick describes the limits of “faith in exposure,” in which one places “extraordinary stress on the efficacy of knowledge per se—knowledge in the form of exposure . . . That a fully initiated listener could still remain indifferent or inimical, or might have no help to offer, is hardly treated as a possibility.” But, as we know from our own world, there often comes a moment that breaks the belief that making the truth known inherently leads the reader—or viewer—to act. The plague of darkness represents that moment for the Israelites, when new ways of understanding had to be cultivated.
The final plague, in which the Egyptian firstborns are killed, is distinct from the others in many ways, including that it is the only one that requires the Israelites’ participation. They must slaughter a lamb and paint its blood on their doorposts, as a sign to God to spare the firstborn of those houses. This ritual is not a one-time protective activity; instead, it becomes a yearly commandment to offer the Paschal sacrifice (and, later, to commemorate this sacrifice through the Passover seder). The killing of the firstborns is a brutal act of violence—but, importantly, the commandment to commemorate this moment in the future is marked not by more death, but rather by the genesis of new practices of storytelling and ritual for the nascent Jewish people.
As an alternative to a hermeneutic that relies on “faith in exposure,” Sedgwick offers what she terms the “reparative impulse”: This desire, she explains, “is additive and accretive . . . It wants to confer plenitude on an object that will then have resources to offer to an inchoate self.” This approach looks at what is present and asks us to imagine what we can create beyond it. Rather than trying to tear away illusion and reveal the most naked, pure form of the world, reparative interpretation asks us to imagine more, to build something better. After the plague of darkness, the Torah moves to a reparative posture—the Israelites do not only survive, but are taught ritual and practice that will endure long into the future. They become active and agential, gathering into a collective that is prepared for liberation.
Today, our faith in exposure is rightly shattered: Revealing evil has not stopped it. Pointing at what is here in front of us cannot remake the world. We cannot make change by watching videos, or by asking others to watch. But making the awful visible is far from the only tool at our disposal. We must meet our neighbors, build real power. We must stand between ICE agents and our neighbors. Only creating new ways of acting and relating can bring us to freedom.
Avigayil Halpern is a rabbi and writer based in Washington, DC, whose work focuses on feminist and queer Torah. Read more of her writing here.
